


Bouncing Back

by whipstitch



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Bromance, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-11
Updated: 2011-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-22 12:58:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whipstitch/pseuds/whipstitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A friendship starts with two shoes, a drink, some laughter, and a lot you never talk about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bouncing Back

**Author's Note:**

> The basic scenario is based loosely on something I drew forever ago. Everything else grew up around it, because let's face it: nobody meets under happy circumstances in the Capitol.

It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. By Euterpe’s standards the ensemble was downright stylish, because at least it didn’t look like a plant and you could walk in the damn thing. But the lacings squeezed and the heels were higher than Johanna liked, and the fact remained that the dress hadn’t been made for her, but for the citizens she was supposed to be talking up. Yeah, right.

The look was meant to soften her. Make her more approachable, according to Orrin, so maybe this year she wouldn’t scare the sponsors away. Not that they’d ever had them to begin with. She hadn’t had any her year till there were only five tributes left and the sponsors all jumped the bandwagon to her. Back then she could’ve passed for soft, or so they’d thought. Now her secret was out, and nobody wanted to deal with the hard-nosed bitch from Seven. Not when she wouldn’t play nice anymore.

She’d gone two hours tonight without snarling at anyone, giggling at every bad joke and trying her best to act like someone who’d wear frothy pink taffeta by choice. It wasn’t enough. She might be catching more flies with honey, as the saying went, but it would take more than flirting to make them pay up.

None of her team dared ask her, but Johanna could see it in the reproachful glances. _Couldn’t you humor them?_ It made sense on paper. She’d be able to set her own prices now, pocket everything herself. And it had to be her that did it. Blight and Orrin were crusty old men. They’d done much better for sponsors her first year, no doubt about that.

They still hadn’t won, though. All that, and those two tributes still got themselves killed the first week. Then there’d been three more coffins waiting for her back home.

Which was why she’d made for the closest balcony and that too-tight too-fucking- _soft_ pink concoction was now in a heap around her ankles. Maybe now she wasn’t wearing much of anything, but so what? She was done. Let them stare. She yanked the shoes off her blistered, bleeding feet and flung them across the tiles.

A voice came from behind her. “A woman after my own heart.”

Johanna whirled, all set to advise the interloper on some creative self-applications for barbed wire, and found Finnick Odair grinning at her. She relaxed a bit. There weren’t rules against punching other victors. “Why? Because I’m now on your level of naked?” He’d come in a kilt and nothing else.

He laughed. “That too. I meant your thoughts on shoes. Down with all of them, I say.” He lifted one of his bare feet by way of explanation.

“And you don’t even have a sock tan. Well done.” Nobody from Four ever had tan lines, come to think of it. She wondered what their prep teams injected them with.

“Socks,” Finnick scoffed. “Who needs _socks?_ They’re like shoes without the benefits.”

He was using his real voice instead of the one he put on for the cameras. He was also holding a drink even pinker than Johanna’s dress, garnished with a dinky paper umbrella and a slice of some neon-colored fruit that nature probably never intended. Johanna noticed his flushed face. “Someone’s having a big night. How many of those have you downed?”

“One.” He slurped at it through the ridiculous curled straw.

“You’re this plastered on one?”

“I’m not _plastered_ , at least not yet,” he protested. “And anyway, this my second drink. You asked how many of _these_ I’d had. The first one was blue. Clearly different.” Finnick laughed. “Oh, I like this. I can be contrary for no reason.”

“So ‘drunk airhead’ is somebody’s fetish. Nice assignment,” Johanna said, then regretted it. There were things you didn’t joke about.

But Finnick kept grinning as he shook his head. “Probably, but not tonight. I have the night off.” He came and stood next to her, draping his free arm over the rail. “It’s bad form to drink during assignments unless they ask you to,” he added. “Alcohol makes you slow.”

 _Not all of you._ Johanna’s body had moved just fine. It was her brain that slowed down, the part that understood consequences. “Well, I guess you’d be an expert on that, wouldn’t you.”

He stiffened, and she figured he’d either snarl back or run away to sniffle in a corner somewhere; either way, he’d leave her alone. Finnick’s lips tightened, and she was banking on the former until he dropped his gaze. “Sorry,” he said.

The weirdest part was that he sounded like he meant it. “Why are you—” Johanna began, and stopped when she saw the sympathy in his eyes. So that was it. _He knew._ It was three years ago now. Of course Snow would’ve made her into a nice little cautionary tale. The Haymitch Abernathy of their generation. Couldn’t let the threat go stale, could he?

She wondered how long Finnick’s list was. It had to be short, given how perfectly he behaved. Finnick brought in so much that he ought to get more chances than she had.

She wanted to tell him to beat it so she could stop thinking about it, but what she heard herself saying was, “Don’t worry about it.”

Her nails ground into the lacquer on the rail. They stood there in silence until Finnick said, “Can I see one of your shoes?”

What kind of opening was that? Johanna waved in the direction she’d thrown them. “I somehow doubt they’ll fit, but if you can find them, be my guest.”

“Hey, you know what they say about men with big feet,” he said, clicking his tongue and making such a ridiculous face that Johanna snorted in spite of herself.

Finnick set his drink down and picked up the nearest shoe. After contemplating it for a moment, he flung it over the balcony’s edge. It hit the forcefield and careened back at him. Instead of catching it or stepping out of the way like a normal person, Finnick stood his ground. He hauled back his foot and punted it back the way it came. Again it bounced, and again he returned fire. “Haven’t you ever played with a forcefield before?”

“Can’t say that I have.” Johanna watched, bemused. His reflexes were pretty impressive given the circumstances.

“Neither have I. It just came to me.” Kick, bounce. Kick, bounce. On the last bounce he hopped into the air as he kicked and ended up whiffing. He overbalanced and toppled over, landing flat on his backside with his kilt askew.

Johanna laughed and applauded. “Bravo. That’s got to be one of the best spills I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m new at my made-up game. Cut me some slack,” Finnick said with mock indignation. He pushed himself to his feet and straightened his kilt. He nodded towards her other shoe. “I’d like to see you do better.”

“Okay then, I will.” She couldn’t just turn down a challenge. Johanna picked up the shoe and threw it. She wound up to kick it as it bounced off the forcefield and— “Ow! Fucking _fuck_.” The shoe smacked against the base of the rail. Johanna flexed her smarting toes. Nothing felt broken and all the nails were intact, but ow. She glared at Finnick accusingly. “How are you still standing?!”

“In District Four we deaden our feet by walking over jellyfish and sea urchins. It takes years to complete, so they start us as soon as we can walk,” Finnick answered with a perfectly straight face. “Don’t you have anything similar?”

“Uh.” He had to be joking, right? But who knew what went on outside of Seven, and it wasn’t the most bizarre thing she’d heard by a long shot. “We’re too busy trying not to chop off our fingers.”

He snickered. “Actually, what you need to do is kick it like this.” He pointed just above his instep.

“Oh, so next to the palm of your foot.”

“Palm of your foot! I like that. It’s descriptive.”

It’s what her aunt had always called it. _“It just makes more sense. I’d know if my feet had balls, thanks.”_ “It’s not mine,” she muttered.

Finnick glanced at her, but all he said was, “You can’t use the tops of your feet because of the bones and the thin skin. Go on, try again.”

Johanna retrieved her shoe and tossed it again, this time angling her foot as she kicked. Instant improvement. The shoe arced into the forcefield, and her toes didn’t feel like they were screaming at her. Her aim wasn’t great and she had to scramble to reach the return volley, but she made it.

“There you go!” The second shoe went flying at the forcefield. Finnick had started playing again. “Want to see who can keep it up the longest?”

She had blisters and he was drunk. The handicap was even. “You’re on.”

Back and forth they went. Three times they started over—twice because they collided with each other, once because Johanna punched the shoe instead of kicking it and Finnick insisted that hands were off-limits. Johanna tried to argue, but the tie went to Finnick because it was his game, after all. They decided it needed real rules, and a name.

“Shoe Warriors?”

“Boring. What about Bounce Back?”

“Sounds like a bad broadcast title. Human Versus Forcefield?”

“That’s a depressing way to see it. The forcefield is always going to win.”

“Fuck You Forcefield, then.”

“No swearing, think of the children. Let’s keep it simple and call it Finnick Odair’s Best Game Ever.”

“Nobody’s going to know what that entails.”

“Exactly! The surprise will be half the fun.” At that moment Johanna’s shoe rebounded at an angle and caught Finnick square in the stomach. He doubled over with an _oof!_ just as his own shoe sailed in and clocked him in the head, knocking him flat.

This time, Johanna figured it’d be unsportsmanlike to laugh. She trotted over and offered him her hand. “What good are your rippling stomach muscles if they don’t block things?”

“Even they have their limits.” Finnick grasped Johanna’s hand and let her pull him up. “That second one didn’t leave a mark, did it?”

“No, you’re good.” Johanna looked at the shoes and felt herself smiling. “You know something, Odair? This is the first time I’ve actually enjoyed myself at one of these things.”

“It must be my sparkling presence.” He smiled back. “You’re welcome. This is the first one I’ve ever been able to stay for.”

“Eh, it’s no consolation, but you’re not missing much. How’d you swing a night off, anyway?” she asked.

“I’m mentoring this year,” he replied.

“Well, yeah, but that’s never mattered before, right?” He’d been around every year. She even remembered seeing him back when she was a tribute herself. He’d been _short_ then.

He shook his head. “I was only a guest. This is my first time mentoring. Mags thought it’d be better to wait until I was guaranteed to be older than the tributes,” he explained.

Johanna was pretty sure that Mags had jack shit to do with the delay if mentoring duties cut into availability, but he probably already knew that. “Makes sense. It’s hard enough getting them to listen anyway.”

Finnick picked up what remained of his drink. “They’re so young. I mean, they aren’t really. Annie’s barely two years younger than me. But…”

“Yeah.” The male tribute Johanna’s first year mentoring had been a year older and a hundred pounds heavier. And he’d still been a damn kid to her, because he had no idea. He’d gotten himself killed at the Cornucopia because he froze up when the blood got too close. “Yeah, I know.”

“Annie makes fun of everything. Zaffar keeps worrying that his brother won’t remember to feed the dog. They’re friends from school, it turns out, and at least one of them will be dead soon.” Finnick looked at Johanna. “Is there a trick to standing it?”

“You don’t get attached,” Johanna said, though it was way too late for that if he was still using names. The mentors with sense just called theirs The Girl and The Boy when the kids weren’t around to hear. “You still help them as best you can, but you just assume they’re done for and let it be a nice surprise if one makes it back.”

“And then they’ll find out that it doesn’t end there,” Finnick said quietly. “What are they coming back _for_?”

“To be alive. Would you have played it any different if you’d known? Be honest.”

He sighed. “No. None of us would, I guess. That’s why we’re here. They’re just… I’m responsible for these two. I should be able to do more than this.”

“Shut up,” Johanna snapped. Finnick’s head jerked up in surprise. “You should be able to, but you can’t. You know why? Because when it gets right down to it, we’re just watchers. We can give them advice and suck up to sponsors so maybe they get the parachutes they need, but we can’t _do_ anything. We can’t do the fighting for them, and we’re sure as fuck not the ones who put them there.”

She dropped her voice, mindful of the cameras, hating that she still bothered to remember because she ought to be past giving a shit at this point. “It’s all the Capitol. We could spend the rest of the Games drunk off our asses and telling everyone to go fuck themselves, and it’s still not our fault, because we didn’t choose any of this. When a kid comes home in a box, it’s the Capitol. When they go off the deep end or end up like us, it’s the Capitol. When they—if there’s a crater where their house used to be, it’s not our fault for not warning them, it’s not their fault for not playing nice, it’s the Capitol. It’s never us. Do you hear me? _It’s never us_.”

“I know. But it feels like it is.”

“Yeah.” She remembered coming home to coffins. _Who’s still on your list, Finnick?_ But you didn’t ask things like that. Johanna took a deep breath. “They count on that. So just keep that out of your head, okay? You’ll be better for it.”

“I’ll try.” Finnick smiled, like he was the one calming _her _down. “Thank you.”__

“Don’t mention it.” He was as much a kid as stupid dead-at-the-Cornucopia Yosef had been, when it got right down to it. Johanna nodded at his drink. “Finish that. You’re too sober.”

Finnick nodded. Then he turned and abruptly tossed said drink over the side.

The forcefield sent it back immediately, splattering Finnick with bright pink slush. Johanna cracked up. “What was that for?”

“I was wondering if it worked on liquids. Apparently it does. Mystery solved!” He looked down at himself. “That is _cold_.”

“You’re freaking weird. Did anybody ever tell you that?” Johanna went to inspect the damage. Finnick’s kilt was now saturated with sugary pink. “Your stylist is going to kill you.”

“She’s seen worse,” he said with a shrug. “You’re as dead as I am anyway.”

“No, mine’s all in one piece.” Johanna went over and picked up her discarded dress. It might as well serve a decent purpose. She tossed it to Finnick. “There. When you’re done using that as a towel, _then_ I’ll be as dead as you.”

Finnick dabbed at his torso with the dress. “Ugh, I think the kilt’s a lost cause. Do you mind if I…?”

Johanna spread her arms. “Do I look like I mind?”

Finnick undid his kilt and laid it on the rail to dry. “Hey, we match.” He pointed at their respective undergarments, both red. “Evidence of a secret pact, obviously. The cameras should like it.”

“Oh boy. We’ll be having a secret love affair by morning.” Johanna rolled her eyes. “You’ve stolen my heart away. I hope you’re happy.”

“But will you be able to tame me?” Finnick put on his purring camera voice. “Or will I return to my old playboy ways and leave you bereft, with only a token to remember me by?”

He dramatically presented her with the umbrella from his drink. Johanna took it and swooned. Then they both lost it. Johanna laughed until her makeup ran, Finnick went halfway into a falsetto, and they both had to brace themselves on the rail to keep their feet. And probably they were both trying too hard, because nothing could be that hilarious. But it came so easily, and Johanna had laughed more in the last half hour than she had the past three years combined. She’d take it anyway.

“Come on,” she told him once they’d caught their breath. “We’re taking a trip to the bar. You’ll get the pink whatever that was off your stomach, and I’ll get us as many drinks as they’ll let us carry because we both deserve to be drunk.”

“I’ll be more underdressed than usual,” Finnick remarked.

“So? You’ve got a night off, and they can’t touch me. Actually, you know what?” On impulse, Johanna pulled off her undergarments. What could they do anyway? Nothing, and that’s how it would stay. The perk of only getting one chance was that afterwards, you were done for good. “There,” she said fiercely. “Now you’re not the most naked person in the room.”

Finnick didn’t so much as raise his eyebrows. “Then by all means, ladies first.”

Johanna grinned. Tomorrow their teams would rag on them for making a spectacle and wasting time, but it wasn’t tomorrow yet. She offered Finnick her arm and led him back inside.


End file.
